By David Farmer

There is no way around it, your deal­er­ship needs a Face­book page. Cre­at­ing a Face­book page isn’t mag­ic. Keep in mind that about 1 bil­lion (yes with a “b”) peo­ple have sat down at a com­put­er and cre­at­ed a Face­book page. This means that if you tru­ly want to get real val­ue out of Face­book, you will need to fol­low some impor­tant key steps.

♦ Tip Num­ber One-Be Inter­ac­tiveSocial media, includ­ing Face­book, is about being inter­ac­tive. Remem­ber that the key word here is “social,” and that means you want to be online inter­act­ing with your poten­tial cus­tomers. Answer­ing ques­tions is a great way to build rela­tion­ships and get new busi­ness.

♦ Tip Num­ber Two-Use Face­book to Keep Exist­ing Cus­tomers

New cus­tomers are essen­tial for build­ing a busi­ness, but keep­ing your exist­ing cus­tomers is vital to your sur­vival. In this fash­ion, Face­book can be used to fos­ter improved com­mu­ni­ca­tion between a deal­er­ship and exist­ing cus­tomers. If there is a prob­lem, you can find out about that prob­lem on Face­book and address it long before you lose a client to a com­peti­tor!

♦ Tip Num­ber Three-Look for Ways to Be Help­fulIf all you ever do on social media plat­forms like Face­book and Twit­ter is active­ly look for sales, then you’ll be per­ceived as a “shark.” How­ev­er, if you take proac­tive steps to help your exist­ing and poten­tial cus­tomers, you will be seen as a trust­wor­thy and valu­able asset. If you han­dle your inter­ac­tion with the pub­lic in the right way, the odds of peo­ple vis­it­ing your deal­er­ship will soar through the roof.

♦ Tip Num­ber Four-You Should Nev­er Be Too Busy to Ignore Your Face­book Mes­sagesIt is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant to real­ize that peo­ple use Face­book a great deal. In fact, many peo­ple use Face­book so much that it prac­ti­cal­ly com­pris­es the entire inter­net for them. This means that if you ignore them on Face­book, you might as well be ignor­ing them alto­geth­er!

♦ Tip Num­ber Five-Your Time and Effort Will Even­tu­al­ly Pay OffYou shouldn’t expect to build your Face­book or oth­er social media pro­files overnight. The process of build­ing a large and use­ful social media fol­low­ing can take time, but the rewards can be sub­stan­tial. Keep in mind that if you have a robust social media pres­ence and your com­peti­tors do not, then you have a real edge over them and one that you can exploit for years to come.